"No," said Mr. Leighton, with a long-drawn impatient sort of relief in his voice. "No, but you did. You talked so much about the man all through your illness that your mother thought you were in love with him yourself. Ridiculous nonsense," he said testily. "And here have I been trying to brace you up to hearing that Mabel is engaged to him, and the scoundrel wishes to marry her at once." Dr. Merryweather, who had said that Elma was not to be excited, ought to have been on the spot just then. She sat on her father’s knee and hugged him. "Oh, papa, papa, how glorious," said she. "Never mind, I shall always stay with you, I shall, I shall." "Oh, will you?" said Mr. Leighton dismally. "Mabel said the same thing not so long ago." Mrs. Leighton and Aunt Katharine came on the balcony, and behind them, Mabel and Mr. Symington. "Isn’t this a midsummer’s night’s dream?" sighed Elma, after the congratulations were over. "I shall get up in the morning ever afterwards, and I shall say, ’Now here there dawneth another blue day’--even although it’s as black as midnight." "Well, now that we’re rid of Mabel," said Aunt Katharine placidly, "when will your turn come along?" "Oh, Elma is going to stay with me," said Mr. Leighton. "H’m. Well, she always admired Miss Grace," said Aunt Katharine. "There’s nothing like being an old maid from the beginning." Elma stirred herself gently, and laughed in the moonlight. "Miss Grace is to be married to Dr. Merryweather," she said with a smile. It was her piece of news, reserved till now for a proper audience. Miss Grace had told her anxiously in the course of the afternoon. "Oh," Elma had said, "how nice! Dr. Merryweather is such a duck!" "Do you think so?" had asked Miss Grace seriously. "Miss Annie used to think he was a little loud in his manners." Miss Grace would ever be loyal to Miss Annie. Adelaide Maud came out just then with Cuthbert. "How much finer to have been loyal to the like of Cuthbert!" Elma could not help the thought. Ah, well, there were fights and fights, and no doubt Miss Grace had won on her particular battlefield. A new dance commenced indoors, and some came searching for partners. "Mr. Leighton," said the voice of George Maclean, "won’t you spare Elma for this dance?" They turned round to look at him. "Elma wants to stay with me," said Mr. Leighton gravely, putting his arms round her. "Hph!" said Aunt Katharine in an undertone. "It’s another Miss Grace, sure enough." "Why don’t you go and dance?" asked Adelaide Maud of Elma. There were her two ideals, Miss Grace and Adelaide Maud, crossing swords as it were with one another. And there was George Maclean waiting at the window of the drawing-room. A Strauss waltz struck up inside, one which she loved. Ah, well, there were several kinds of fights in the world. She felt in some inscrutable way that it was "weak" to stay with her father. She went in with George Maclean.